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BSDs Struggle With Open-Source Graphics Drivers

02-08-2013, 10:00 AM

Phoronix: BSDs Struggle With Open-Source Graphics Drivers

While there's plenty of code pouring into the Linux world for bettering open-source graphics drivers from desktop graphics cards to ARM SoCs, in the *BSD world they are struggling with their graphics driver support. Matthieu Herrb gave a presentation on the (rather poor) state of graphics on Unix-like platforms outside of Linux...

Wayland will also be a mess for BSD and Solaris operating systems due to its dependence on kernel mode-setting, kernel input drivers, and Weston being designed with solely Linux in mind.

THIS IS NOT TRUE. I was afraid of that myself and expressed my fear on planetkde and here is what I got as an answer from Martin Gr??lin (I am pretty sure he knows what he is talking about!):

@P.Jay: "So with Wayland depending on KMS I see big problems coming."
and Wayland does not depend on KMS. QtWayland runs on the raspberry pi - proprietary driver, no KMS and still: it works. Wayland is just a protocol to exchange buffers.

You are not the only one getting it wrong, there is lots of FUD around Wayland especially as people get confused about what Wayland allows and what Weston (reference implementation of a Wayland compositor) requires.

I don't see any reason why Wayland should not work with NVIDIA's driver and personally I'm sure that the driver already supports it in the NVIDIA labs.

On a side note: I see a bright future for FreeBSD with the upcoming 10 release. The FreeBSD foundation exceeded it's funding goal of 500.000k USD by more than 50% (Where was the news about that?! Source: http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/) and there are some awesome features coming up (the new package manager looks amazing and imho beats everything to ground Linux has to offer). I am pretty sure, when time comes, those things will get sorted out. Don't get me wrong, I also use Linux everyday and like it very much. But I also loved the BSD's and want them to succeed as well!

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Why do you need graphics drivers on BSD? Isn't BSD for beardy / server stuff? Genuinely interested in anyone using BSD on desktop machines with a GUI for anything other than 'just because I can...' purposes.

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Why do you need graphics drivers on BSD? Isn't BSD for beardy / server stuff? Genuinely interested in anyone using BSD on desktop machines with a GUI for anything other than 'just because I can...' purposes.

Wow, ignorance much or what. Why would I want to run anything but Windows / OS X?

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I know why someone would want to run Linux. But why run BSD when it's lagging so far behind at this point? I'm not talking about technical merits, licences, and theoretical this and that. I'm talking reality. Linux is ahead of BSD, technologically and support wise; that is, all these corporate entities (such as Intel, speaking of graphics) are pouring massive amounts of money and resources into Linux. Most OSS users use Linux.

Actually, if anything, you can say that BSD does quite well in the form of MacOS. But for OSS, Linux has won.

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Maybe right solution is to send more code patches and join linux discussion on future of kernel graphics subsystem, so that is more firendly for BSD folk?

BSD fuckers should go hang themselves or slit their wrists rather then join discussions on the Linux kernel and thus hold linux back.

Linux people shouldn't be burden with sending patches just for shitty little OSes that couldn't compete with Linux and if BSD fuckers don't like that, they can commit mass sucide (like the people of Jones town did) and it'll be entertaining.

Dear BSD, go unify, crap even more Instead of fighting with proprietary, you are fighting with a FLOSS operating system like a parasite. I bet, you already got blessing from your holy fathers microsoft & apple

When I see claims from BSD parasites like "BSD should work with Linux" or "Linux should not implement features that are not welcome/accepted within BSD", you only confirm your parasite behaviour. You essentially make the same developers to carry DOUBLE weight. The only reason why someone would claim this - is to slow down the development and fragment it.

BSD license is only good for *parts*. And even then, it is not far from "public domain", why bother?

Originally posted by crazycheese

Agreed. But my message to Beasties was simple: unification is only needed for proprietary systems. This was the true goal of "unified linux" and it failed for this reason.

This is also the reason for Beasties to stop attacking Linux. Its open, developers not willing to support your os - port the code yourself, nobody prevents you. Port it in later stages. Stop acting like clown attacking open os, chose a valid goal - try to match own rival - MacOSX.